By the Atonement of God's dear Son, God has made a way by which He can satisfy all the claims of His inflexible justice, and yet bestow His mercy upon the guilty. Preach the Gospel, not morality. The Gospel is so good that nothing else can equal it. The Glad Tidings of mercy for the guilty through the atoning blood of Christ Jesus. *Acts 16:31* Proclaim Christ crucified and bid sinners to trust His Precious Blood alone for free, irreversible justification. We glory in the Cross, for it is the best and highest truth. The Gospel brings free and full forgiveness to the penitent sinner. Your hope must be in the Bleeding Savior, and in Him alone. Shut your eyes to everything but Christ Jesus whom God has set forth to be a Propitiation for human sin. Jesus Christ standing in the sinner's place. God punished the sinner's guilt upon Christ instead of upon the sinner, and now all that any sinner is bidden to do is to trust Christ to save Him.
The wonderful transfer of all my sins to Jesus has been made by means of Imputation through childlike faith in the Blood of Jesus Christ. He has taken all the consequences of my guilt, and bore them all, and removed them forever. Jesus took this sinner’s place, He was despised and rejected of men, His own disciples, forsook Him, hid their faces from Him. The soldiers spit in His face, they bowed the knee and hailed Him with mockery. They put Him to the death of a heinous criminal, He received the most shameful place on Calvary – the center of the three crosses. *John 3:16-18* Give much earnest thought to this truth - God incarnate in Christ Jesus bleeding and dying for human sin.
Tell all sinners this – Jesus came to this earth to be the Substitute for sinners. His holy life is our Righteousness, His suffering and death is our complete Atonement; He appeased the wrath of God for all our sins. Good resolutions, good works, oh no, God's says, "when I see the blood, I will pass over you." Human nature thinks the Cross is ridiculous and foolish. Blood is repulsive, and so is sin; we shrink from it. The Cross of Calvary is where my Salvation was accomplished. Substitution – one of the richest words in the human language. Christ standing in my place, that I may stand in Christ’s place. Christ on the cross for me; Christ in the grave for me; Christ risen for me; Christ in heaven interceding for me.
To believe is to trust. Tell them all this – That Jesus is God Incarnate; that the Almighty became a Jewish man, that He suffered in the sinner’s place, whosoever believes in Him shall not be punished, because God punished Christ instead of me. Christ bore God’s wrath instead of me. His Substitution was for me, and it will save me, but if you believe not, you have not part in Christ. Put all your trust on Jesus. Flee from everything else to the wounds of Christ, who suffered in the sinner’s place, and to the Cross where He was made a Curse for us, so we could receive the blessing.
God made Jesus to be Sin for us. God put our sins on Jesus Christ. God lifted our sins from us to Jesus. God treated Him as if He were the sinner, which He never was, and never could be. God left Him as if He would had left a sinner. God smote Him as if He would have smitten a sinner. That which was due to us for our sins was exacted and put upon Jesus Christ. He was made a debtor for our sin debts, and He paid them in full with His life-blood. He was the Surety for our sin debt, and He smarted for it. When Justice came to smite the sinner, Justice found Jesus in the sinner’s place, and smote Him without relenting, He took the whole weight of divine wrath upon His innocent soul. Jesus Christ died without any sin of His own, yet He died a penal death, because our sins were counted as His. He took upon Him our iniquities as though they were His own, and then being found in the sinner’s place, He suffered, as if He has been the sinner, the wrath that was due for our sins, He took upon His soul.
You are a sinner, lost and undone; Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. To do this, He had to take the sinner’s place, to bear the sinner’s guilt, to suffer the penalty that the sinner deserved to suffer. He was wounded for our transgressions. His blood was shed for you, rest your soul’s salvation upon His great work. Come to the Cross now, and trust Christ as your Substitute and Savior. Great grace, terrible wrath, the Lord is terrible against sin, but tender to the sinner. To do right, God must punish sin. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, bowed His head in death in the sinner’s place and bore the wrath of God on account of our sins.
We have thousands upon thousands of iniquities, and have transgressed the Law in every way. When we trust Christ's Finished Work, God no longer imputes these sins to us. God sets them to the account of Another, who stood in the sinner’s place, and was made to be Sin in the sinner’s place. Christ stood in your place, you can now stand in His place. The wounds that sin has made in your soul can be perfectly cured by the blood of Christ. If you apply anything but the blood of Christ, it will only poison and worsen your sin sores. Sin is truly killed when we look to Christ bleeding on the Cross. Nothing can kill sin but beholding the Lamb of God and trusting to His Righteousness.
Man cannot afford the medicine that cures the sin-sick soul. The most desperate disease is sin, and poor ragged human nature can never weave a garment fine enough (without spot) to cover the soul’s nakedness. Nothing can cover the soul of man but Christ’s perfect Righteousness. Religion’s robe must be unraveled and stripped off, before the Righteousness of Christ can be put on. Whatsoever man puts on, Satan will strip off, and leave the soul naked and open to the wrath of God. All that man can do in his own strength can never mortify and put away sin. Fall down before Christ’s majesty, love, and grace. Isaiah 2:17 Look to Christ truly, see pure grace, pure righteousness, in Him every way infinite, far exceeding all our sin and misery. I Corinthians 2:2 Only Christ’s Righteousness can bring you into acceptation with God. Christ is the Rock higher than self-righteousness, Satan, and sin. Psa 61:2-3; I Cor 10:4; Psa 81:16 Close with Jesus for justification. Stand only upon the Rock of Ages.
Put anything of your own to Christ and you spoil everything. When you believe and come to Christ, you must leave behind your own righteousness, and bring nothing but your sin (O that is hard!). You must leave behind your holiness, sanctification, duties, resolving, humblings; bring nothing but your wants and miseries, else Christ is not fit for you, nor you for Christ. Christ will only be a pure Redeemer and Mediator, and you are an undone sinner, or Christ and you will never agree. It is the hardest thing in the world for self-righteous human nature to take Christ alone for your Righteousness; that is, to acknowledge and submit to Christ’s Righteousness alone. Whatever comes in, when you go to God for acceptation, besides Christ, is antichrist, bid it be gone, make only Christ Righteousness your Refuge. Faith comes from a thorough sight of sin, a troubled conscience. Christ is my Ransom and Righteousness. Untried faith is uncertain faith.
Believing, there must be a clear conviction of sin and the merits of the blood of Christ. Christ is willing to save you, if you are a sinner. Satan charges sin upon our conscience, we charge sin upon Christ. That is gospel-like. That makes Him Christ. To take and trust Christ’s Righteousness alone, His Blood alone for salvation, that is the sum and total of the gospel. Nothing but Christ, Christ alone, for righteousness, justification, sanctification, and redemption. Self-righteousness and self-excellency hinder Christ from coming in, and till Christ comes in, guilt will not go out.
When guilt rises in us, only Christ’s blood can allay it. Make Christ your peace, not duties and tears. Look to Christ first, then do as much as you will for Him. Stand with all your soul’s weight upon Christ’s Righteousness. Take heed of having one foot on your own righteousness, and another on Christ. Christ must sit on the throne on grace in your conscience, or there is nothing but guilt, terrors, suspicions, and your soul will hang between hope and fear. See your sin’s utmost vileness and the utmost hell of your own heart. Take Christ and make Him your Advocate and you shall find Him Jesus Christ the Righteous. In all your doubtings, fears, and storms of conscience, look at Christ continually, do not argue with Satan, he desires no better, go straight to Christ, He will answer for you.
It is Christ’s office to be our Advocate (I John 2:1). His office is to answer the law, as our Surety (Hebrews 7:22). His office is to answer justice, as our Mediator (Galatians 3:20; I Timothy 2:5). He is sworn to the office (Hebrews 7:20-21). Put Christ upon it. If you attempt to do anything yourself, as satisfaction for sin, you renounce Christ the Righteous, who was made sin for us. II Corinthians 5:21 You must be a poor sinner stripped of self-righteousness. Believe Christ’s willingness to save you and that will make you willing. If you cannot believe, put Him upon it. Philippians 2:13 May your sin make you look more at Christ, and less at yourself. Waves and billows of temptations are not to drown you, but to push you off yourself and onto the Rock – Christ.
Christ is our temple, sacrifice, altar, high priest – none can come to Him but sinners, and only His blood can be brought as an offering. Your sin may be great in your eyes, do not despair, hope still, when the clouds are blackest, even then look to Christ. His precious blood speaks reconciliation (Col 1:20), cleansing (I John 1:7), purchase (Acts 20:28), redemption (I Peter 1:18), purging (Heb 9:13-14), remission (Heb 9:22), liberty (Heb 10:19); justification (Romans 5:9), nighness to God (Eph 2:13). Psalm 85:8 God speaks grace, mercy, and peace. Look upon Christ first, not sin. In every duty look to Christ, before duty, to pardon; in duty, to assist; after duty, to accept. Without this it is all careless, carnal duty. Do not legalize the gospel, nothing remains for you to suffer. Don’t make Christ a half-mediator. Human nature attempts to bear part of your sins, and make part satisfaction for yourself, but it is all vanity.
Consider Christ – look not at your duties, workings, qualifications. Look only at Christ’s merits, or it will cost you your soul. The merits of Christ alone without your works must be the foundation of your hope. Christ only can be the hope of glory. Col 1:27 When we come to God, we must bring nothing but Christ with us. Any ingredients of efforts of your own will poison and corrupt faith. He that builds upon works and doings at all, knows not the merits of Christ. If you believe in Christ, you must renounce your goodness as dung and dross. (Phil 3:7-8) Privileges, baptism, obedience, sanctification, duties, tears, repenting, resolvings must be forsaken; nothing but Christ must be held up. Your workings and self-sufficiency must be destroyed. You must take all out of God’s hand freely. Christ is the gift of God (John 4:10). Faith is the gift of God (Eph 2:8). Pardon is the free gift of God (Rom 5:16). Eternal life is the free gift of God (Rom 6:23). Human nature storms, frets, and rages at his, that all is a gift, and that man can purchase nothing with His doings and duties, that all human workings are excluded and of no value in Heaven.
Human nature contrives a way of salvation that puts it into the hands of man to sell it. Christ only gives salvation freely. Human nature always attempts to set up a way to purchase salvation by doing, and that abominates the merits of Christ. Human nature will do anything to be saved, rather than simply go to Christ and owe all to Him. Christ will have nothing from you, but human nature always thrusts its own filthy rags upon Christ. The merits of Christ and infinite satisfaction made by His death is the only way.
